Category: Music

There are several ways to add music to Instagram stories. You may even have seen one of them involves playing a song of your choice on the Apple Music or Spotify app, pausing it to go to Instagram story and resume playing it via the Control Center. There are also mobile apps out there that will allow you to add music to your Instagram stories by picking from a song list within the app itself.

Once when I had too much time on my hands, I used to populate my 15-second Instagram stories with snippets of songs to emphasize the specific lyrics that came to me subconsciously. Of course the feature to add music to Instagram stories is already available but only for select countries for the meantime.

I would usually add music to Instagram stories in the following manner:

1 – Play the song on my Apple Music app and screen record the part of the song where the specific lyrics are. iOS 11.4, however, has blocked screen recording of songs being played on Apple Music and if you attempt to screen record it, you’ll get a screen recording with the sound turned off.

The reason why I do not play it on the Apple Music or Spotify app, pause it to go to Instagram story and resume playing it via the Control Center is the quality of the audio/sound. If you’ve tried this you can hear the big difference. So I go for the other option, which is playing the video of the song on YouTube and screen recording it from there.

2 – I go to the screen recorded video on my Camera Roll and, click on Edit and at the bottom of the screen would tap on the circle with 3 dots inside, which would lead me to CropVS and iMovie options for editing. I would select iMovie for trimming the recorded part to 15 seconds only.

3 – I would then open CropVS and import the trimmed screen recording. CropVS would compress it and the compressed version always makes for a quick Instagram story upload.

4 – Upon opening my Instagram story, I would select the screen recorded video. I would then tap on the pencil icon and colour selection that comes up. If my mood tells me to pick blue, I would tap on blue and press on the screen for a while until the colour blue fills the screen to cover the video. Sometimes I would add emojis or GIFs or edit it with another mobile app called Vimo for more animated emojis.

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For a good while I enjoyed streaming music with my Spotify Premium subscription but nothing lasts forever. I eventually was faced with cancelling my Spotify Premium subscription too soon and at a time when I was not ready to entertain Apple Music’s streaming service.

When I started traveling a year ago, it made more sense finance-wise to buy a local SIM than to continue with my Smart postpaid’s international roaming. Grab mobile app was the safest option for a transport service in Southeast Asia (still is) because it’s important for drivers to be able to communicate with their customers. Even without a change of SIM cards, the smartphone would automatically detect a user’s location and in turn our smartphone’s downloaded applications vary their content from one place to another.

Spotify is not immune from these types of changes. The error message “Login failed. You can only use Spotify abroad for 14 days” would then appear. Of course, there is a solution. It entails cancelling your Spotify Premium subscription and only by going free for a while you can change your country in your Profile settings. If you’re constantly travelling, all you have to do is edit your country under Profile to reflect your current location as long as you continue to be a Premium subscriber.

It’s no trouble repeating those steps constantly but I had to start looking into Apple Music. I find that Apple Music subscription is not hindered by changes in location as it goes by one’s Apple ID and that’s what makes it convenient for someone like me who’s an iPhone user. I had a 3-month free trial for a start with Apple Music and it’s not so bad. Apple Music works well with Shazam mobile app, too.

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A few days ago I had no clue what a minor headache a Spotify Facebook login could cause until it happened to me.

I had my Facebook deactivated for a long time now and having downloaded Spotify to my Android device, I then tried to recall my Spotify login credentials. I knew I had signed up for Spotify with an e-mail address and not via other social media accounts but I was drawing a blank. I had Spotify installed on my iPhone 6 Plus before and the latter doesn’t seem to automatically log me out of mobile apps unless I was resetting the network settings or some other. After having installed it on Android and trying to return to whatever it was that I was multi-tasking with, I didn’t realise I had literally clicked on the button for log in with Facebook. I was seriously pissed with myself, not to mention the multi-tasking part may have rose my cortisol levels.

I frowned at the e-mail notification that suddenly came up on my phone. It was Facebook welcoming me back. Ughhhh. That’s when I knew I had made a mistake. By accidentally logging in with Facebook on Spotify mobile app, I had activated my defunct Facebook account.

From there on I had to deal with the drudgery of uploading a valid ID or contacting my Facebook friends because Facebook apparently had to lock me out. I followed the instructions but the ID photo wasn’t clear enough for them, I got fed up and just let it be. I needed to log back in so I could deactivate it again.

Earlier today, I tried to log back in to my old Facebook account and the security check it required this time was to supply my birth date. Easy peasy. Why didn’t they ask me that the first time? Unbelievable. I know, I know. It’s because it’s easier to supply a birth date of a stranger and unauthorized access could be had. Yes, I was finally able to deactivate my account.

The lesson here is knowing which mobile apps you have connected to your Facebook account, especially if you plan to deactivate it. Signing in using your social media credentials might not be a good idea and mobile app registration via an e-mail account would be an outstanding alternative.

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If you’re looking for meditation music you can play on your smartphone, I recommend you check out the mobile app Omvana. With Omvana you can download relaxing music to accompany your meditation exercises. The app can be downloaded from the App Store and Google Play for free although some mp3 files are for sale starting at $0.99.

I downloaded the app a few weeks ago and got 7 audio files for free. Every week I would be able to download a few free audio files to listen to right on the app itself. They have binaural tracks – tracks that are best heard using headphones. To check on new tracks, just click on Omvana’s “New” tab. Today I saw a new free track called Bubbling Spring under the category “Sounds of Nature”. Once you click on “Free”, the clicked button will change to “Download” and it will eventually change to “Play” after download is finished.

A few of my personal favorites are from the soothing Meditation Music by Kerri Lake such as Dancing Wind Flute, Eagle Feather and Echoing Feelings. The orange loop icon on the left side means there’s no need to click on the track as it will automatically replay the track of your preference.

If you want to de-stress for a while, just take your pick from the free tracks on Omvana.

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This morning I got this idea of creating a ringtone out of the Cutting Crew song, (I Just) Died In Your Arms Tonight. You probably have heard of it from GTA Vice City. My friend, Crizzy, on the other hand recalled she remembers the song from a Drew Barrymore chick flick, Never Been Kissed. Anyway I chose that particular song to create a ringtone from because I really dig the sound of the cello during the first 15 seconds of the song.

My iPhone had not been synced with iTunes for a long time. Since I don’t own a computer or laptop anymore, I didn’t want the risk of overwriting some files and I still like the current music and photo files as they are from the last time I synced them. So I went searching online for information on making a ringtone within the iPhone itself without having to sync the phone to iTunes.

Most of the options I read about could only work for a jailbroken device. I sure don’t want to jailbreak my device anymore. I have had enough of that from the past – new software updates would always get messed up and battery drain issue worsened after a jailbreak.

The only legit solution I found sans having to go install the ringtone maker app in Cydia was installing Garage Band and an app to create ringtones with from the mp3 files you currently have on your Music app. Both are paid apps when I checked them on the app store.